Blood, Skin and Gratitude
by LittleLongHairedOutlaw
Summary: Sergeant Sally Donovan is haunted by helping to save Sherlock Holmes' life.


**A/N: A sequel of sorts to _It was Greg _though it's not actually necessary to read that first.**

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Two days later, and she still feels his skin under her fingers, still sees the blood on her hands though she's scrubbed them raw in the attempt to get clean. Two days since Sherlock Holmes the Freak (who doesn't seem as freakish anymore as he used to) was shot and almost died in front of her, and Sally Donovan, battle-hardened Sergeant from New Scotland Yard, is still in shock.

It's not clinical shock, mind, nothing that could interfere with her work because she's learned to compartmentalise long ago, but it's enough that the sense memories haunt her. The soft skin of his wrist and then his throat under her fingers as she sought the pulse that she didn't find. His chest under her hands as she performed the compressions to keep him alive. The blood sticking her fingers together, hot and coppery to smell, clinging to the inside of her nose, as she tried to stop his life leaking from the hole in his chest.

Greg's jacket was soaked through with blood when she took over from him (and he was trying to force air into Sherlock's lungs), sopping and slippery so she added her scarf to it and still it wasn't enough. On the second night she wakes and can still feel the soaking fabric between her fingers, sees his blank eyes half-open as Greg breathed for him, hears the whimpers and groans from when he was still able to breathe himself, the gurgling half-strangled attempt at John's name.

She doesn't sleep again that night.

He hasn't regained consciousness yet. The doctor's haven't let him. They've kept him sedated and in a state of hypothermia in an attempt to protect his brilliant brain. (And it is brilliant. She has to acknowledge that, has to admit that for all of the barbs she's thrown at him she's also been a little in awe of him.) There's the chance that he might never wake, or might never be the same. She knows all of this thanks to Greg, who's been running between the hospital and the Yard since, updating her when he stops for breath. Sherlock might never wake. His heart stopped three times – once with her, once in the ambulance and once in surgery. And though he's alive, technically, he might be gone too.

The thought is almost as shocking as the memories.

The next day, over her lunch hour, she decides against going for food. Instead, she goes to the hospital, nervous about confronting the reality of what's happened.

She's always hated hospitals.

They are both bustling and still, oddly hushed in spite of the people everywhere, doctors and nurses and orderlies going about their business calmly and efficiently, visitors coming and going, some smiling, clearly relieved while others hover near the threshold of tears if they haven't already passed it. Not to mention the patients in varying degrees of health. The pall of death hangs over everything, even away from the morgue or the ICU, disinfectant and the heavy plastic smell permeating everywhere.

This hospital is no different.

John is, surprisingly, sitting in the hallway, his head in his hands, shoulders rising and falling slowly. Sally's stomach twists that he's not inside in the room and for a long moment she thinks she might actually get sick, until she manages to suppress it. She sits beside him, and quietly lays a hand on his shoulder. John jumps, and raises his head, red-rimmed eyes wide until he looks at her, when his face softens.

"Sorry Sally, I didn't expect to see you here." His voice is hoarse and she's mildly surprised that he's addressing her by her first name. Then again, this isn't the usual professional setting.

"It's all right." A beat, a moment's hesitation and then, "how is he?"

John sighs, face tight and jaw strained. "He's holding on. They lightened the sedation today and eased off the hypothermia, letting him warm up." His mouth twitches in a slight smile, eyes watering. "He's managing to breathe on his own."

"That's good, right?" She says that, though really she's wondering if it might not be a little soon to let him breathe on his own, if he's not conscious yet.

John nods. "It's promising."

"Then why aren't you in with him?"

"I'm giving his parents some time. They wanted me to have a break, get some food, you know? And I tried, I did, but I couldn't bring myself to eat, I just keep seeing him lying there." He laughs harshly, bitterly. "It doesn't help being a doctor, this time. I can't do anything for him except keep talking and hope that he can hear me."

She doesn't know what to say to this. The helplessness evident in every line of John's posture is a surprise to her. He's always been so organised and in control, visibly forcing himself to keep it together after the affair at Bart's, that it's unexpected for him to pretty much admit to being helpless. It puts her own feelings about recent events into context. At least she was there and able to do something even if that amounted to having to perform CPR on a man that she used to hate. If it was her fiancé instead in that hospital room . . .

John's sense of helplessness is understandable. And he has the added weight of being a doctor. How that must feel so heavy now. "Being here with him is probably the best that you can do for now," Sally says softly. "I'm sure he knows he isn't alone and it's a help to him." It seems like such a trite thing to say, especially when John shrugs, mouth twisted and fresh tears glinting in his eyes.

"Maybe." John swallows and a long silence falls. She's just considering going back to the Yard to write up some paperwork when he turns fully to face her, grabbing her into a hug that amazes her possibly more than anything else in the last three days. "Thank you, Sally," his voice is gruff, "for what you did for Sherlock out there. Greg told me about it."

She nods, and tentatively hugs him back. "It's all right, John. Just letting him die wasn't really an option, you know? I just did what I had to do." The words are true, and it's a relief to say them.

It's even more so when John looks her in the eye and says, "He wouldn't even be alive now if it weren't for you and Greg. So thanks all the same, Sergeant Donovan. You've helped to work a miracle."


End file.
